Whenindisgrace

This October Nicholas Hytner will be directing a celebration of 50 years of the National Theatre (it'll be on BBC2 too) with excerpts of many of its best productions.  He's asked for suggestions.  Here are mine (I've only been going for the past 25):

New plays:
Arcadia, Angels in America, A Question of Attribution, Dealer's Choice, Racing Demon, Copenhagen (and plays I saw in later productions:  True West, Tales from Hollywood, Glengarry Glenn Ross)

Shakespeare:
Ian Holm as Lear (Richard Eyre), Ian McKellen's Richard III (Eyre), the Mendes/SRB Othello, the Warner/Fiona Shaw Richard II, the Nunn/Goodman Merchant of Venice

Other classics:
Fuente Ovejuna (directed by Declan Donellan), Sweeney Todd (Donellan), Guys and Dolls (Eyre), An Inspector Calls (Daldry), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (McBurney), Summerfolk (Nunn)

What are yours?

Nicholas Hytner has announced a slew of interesting productions:  the Edward II with John Heffernan we were all expecting, the Tori Amos musical The Light Princess with Rosalie Craig and Clive Rowe opening in November, James Baldwin's The Amen Corner directed by Rufus Norris, Pirandello's La Liola directed by Richard Eyre, Georg Kaiser's From Morning to Midnight (German expressionism), Anne-Marie Duff in Strange Interlude directed by Simon Godwin, a couple of children's shows Emil and the Detectives in the Oliver directed by Bijan Sheibani and in the Shed The Elaphantom directed by Marianne Elliott.  Plus the Mendes/SRB Lear in January 2014.

I'm most looking forward to Strange Interlude as I've never seen it.  I was thinking about O'Neill the other day wondering what Kevin Spacey would be doing in his final two years.  I hope the Lear will be as good as it should be.  I have loved the work of both, but fear it can't live up to expectations, and  I do think that the Sam Mendes Bridge Project productions were only very good, rather than truly great.  They didn't have the power of his best work at the RSC and the Donmar.  I'm always interested to see good productions of European classics, but wonder if the NT is choosing the right plays.  With the Ferdinand Brückner a few years ago and the Kaiser now I wonder if they're not going for plays that are minor even in Germany.  And I've rarely been convinced by a British Pirandello production - it will need a major name in the cast I would have thought.

What are people looking forward to in 2013?  I'm a little underwhelmed by what is on offer.  This time last year I was particularly excited by the prospect of SRB in Timon, the Complicité Master and Margarita and the Cheek by Jowl Tis Pity, all of which were fantastic.  There is nothing that whets my appetite so much this year:  Cheek by Jowl's Ubu Roi will probably be more duty than pleasure; SRB is unemployed come March.  The Donmar and the Almeida have rather dull programmes.  The Michael Grandage is too safe and starry.  Which leaves...?

I am excited by the prospect of Adrian Lester's Othello, hope that Antony Sher's Köpenick and the Howard Davies/Upton/Gorki Children of the Sun will be good and there's a new Bruce Norris at the Royal Court.  And I wonder what the Bristol Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory make of Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is getting a rare outing.  I suppose there is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but can it possibly be as good as Matilda?

Perhaps I'm getting jaded.

Very enterprising of Bath to put this on, an excellent revival of a modern classic, directed by the author and starring a bigger name than the original production (Antony Sher taking on the role originated by Henry Goodman, as he did with Broken Glass).  Very funny, full of ideas, performances all first-rate.

Made me think - wouldn't it be nice to have a new play from Johnson who wrote some of the best plays of the late-80s, 90s but now seems to be mainly directing.  And is Phyllida Lloyd going to return to the theatre some time (she directed the original production)?

Touring to Oxford, Cambridge and Richmond over the next month or so - you would have thought they could have found one venue that didn't epitomise southern middle-class comfort.